I had very beautiful blond hair from the time I had hair until kindergarten when an extremely mean girl took those stupid safety scissors and literally hacked at my hair until half was long and half was short. So, from kindergarten to about 6th grade, I had what could be called a pixie cut if you were being nice, I call it "young lesbian."
So, after a period of this short hair torture, my mother decided "Hey, let's make it worse...Ogilvie home perms are nice." Thus began the afro days of Emily...short, unbelievably tightly curled hair with perms performed by my beloved Mamaw...Picture it, fumes, crying, yelling, with the final result resembling, oh, I dunno, Annie..which brings me to....
My mother decided I could sing. I can sing alright now, enough to pass, like if midgets had guns to my head and said, "Sing, monkey, or we'll take your arms," I could probably do it well enough not to lose my arms. However, at the age of 7, I really couldn't sing. Not only could I not sing, she wanted me to sing show tunes, namely "Tomorrow" from "Annie." Oh, and "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music," and "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead," from "The Wizard of Oz." I have no idea why I don't see a therapist regularly. My music teacher kept telling me, "There is a high Emily, and a low Emily, and I want to hear the high Emily." If you've ever heard my voice, there is NO low Emily. My speaking voice is nearly monotonous, and whenever I try to do a falsetto, it's painful to do and to hear.
So, seriously and thank the LORD we didn't have a camcorder, I entered into a number of ill-fated talent shows and lost every single one, except the one where I was the only one in my category. Nice. I have like one trophy that resides at my parents' house that mocks me every time I see it. Not meant for Broadway, and at approximately age 12, I think I held my breath until I passed out until my mom agreed to stop cutting my hair. Which is also why I will never, ever have hair more than an inch above my shoulders.
Fast forward to 20 years later...I loved/love karaoke so much. It is one of my guilty pleasures, and I don't need much prodding to agree to do it. I was at the Sports Page in Columbus, MS, which is a double wide trailer on some kind of stilts, doing my weekly karaoke routine. I was feeling sassy and as I left, I turned around to say something decidedly very clever, and as I slammed the door with satisfaction, I tripped backwards over the handicapped ramp.
Forget thinking, "Oh, no, I've broken something," no, no, I was too worried about the fact that I did this in front of 10 people. I jumped up, realized I couldn't put any weight on that foot, shook it off, and went to an after-party, where I was carried everywhere, which I rather enjoyed, and then argued with my ride home, an Australian friend I used to have before he turned into a self-important arsehole, and fell asleep on my bed in my clothes. I woke up the next morning to go to the bathroom and fell on my face due to the pain. I crawled to the bathroom while my dog Norton jumped on me and then had to call the aforementioned Australian to come help me by taking the poor dog outside. He proceeded to pee for about 7 minutes. Poor Norton.
So, the moral of the story is that in a handful of cases, very humiliating things have happened to me while trying to entertain the masses. I need to learn how to use my charisma in a positive way that benefits mankind as well as myself. No casts or ankle boots included.
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